The family of 70-year-old Wesley Kless reported him missing after the Marilla, Erie County, man had not been seen since 11 a.m. Thursday.

The Erie County Sheriff’s Office pinged his cell phone near the area of Route 20A and Dutch Hollow Road in the Town of Sheldon.

An investigation revealed that Kless was operating his snowmobile northbound on a marked trail. Instead of staying on the trail, he followed a natural gas line path for a tenth of a mile. There, deputies say, he struck a six-by-four-foot drainage ditch that ejected him from the snowmobile.